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Smoking may qualify as one of the top ten most reviled habits in the U.S., and that may be why the number of those smoking had been decreasingly steadily for 15 years until 2008, when the number rose slightly. Yes, Americans are trying to quit. A little under 21 percent are still smokers, according to a 2008 survey by the CDC. About 70 percent of those smokers say they want to quit, according to the American Cancer Society, but only 4-7 percent succeed without some help.
Smokers try to kick the habit in myriad ways, and sometimes unbelievably complicated ways. I’ve had friends who went cold turkey, then added the patch, started chewing gum and ended up in hypnotherapy—only to start smoking again when life’s stresses reached a tipping point that only a smoke could cure. So it’s no big surprise we may soon have a vaccine to help smokers quit. Less than two months ago Swiss startup Cytos Biotechnology had been banking on its experimental anti-smoking vaccine when that failed in a mid-stage study. The Cytos vaccine had been promising two years ago, when Novartis bought the rights to it in a deal valued (according to a story in Reuters) at 600 million francs. The vaccine aimed to help smokers kick the habit by preventing nicotine from entering the brain, which would eliminate the satisfaction that comes with smoking. In mid-October, however, the vaccine failed to show a difference in smoking abstinence between those who received it for eight weeks and those who received a placebo vaccine for eight weeks. Needless to say, the company’s stock tanked.
But hardcore smokers don’t despair, another vaccine is in the offing. Nabi Biopharmaceuticals and GlaxSmithKline just signed an agreement for Nabi’s anti-smoking vaccine—a deal that could be worth more than half a billion dollars, according to this report in DailyFinance. NicVAX, as its now known, is an experimental therapy for treating nicotine addiction and claims to prevent smoking relapse. Here’s how it works: the vaccine stimulates the body’s immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine molecules. Once bound up, they are too big to cross the blood-brain barrier—meaning, essentially, they can’t get to the receptors in the brain that cause the pleasure sensation. And that sensation is addictive, so without it, smokers and other users of nicotine products should have an easier time quitting. Nabi’s scientists believe the antibodies created as a result of its vaccine will stick around in the blood stream for 6-12 months.
Others are banking on its success. In September, Nabi received a $10 million grant from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse to continue developing the vaccine. That’s the second grant it’s gotten from the agency and the vaccine has also been given Fast Track Designation by the FDA. The company will soon move ahead with Phase III clinical trials.
If the drugs succeeds and is approved, the market for the vaccine could be enormous. According to research from Datamonitor, the global market for smoking cessation is expected to reach $4.6 billion—yes billion—by 2016 and vaccine could account for $2 billion in sales.
source: trueslant.com